Thursday, May 23, 2019
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Scuba Diving UK

British Scuba Diving Portal

Scuba Diving UK

Scuba Diving UK

Just Google the search phrase "best scuba diving locations" and your result will include various travel agencies and magazines wishing to whisk you away to distant lands where oceans are blue and waters are warm. Australia, Micronesia, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Galapagos, the Caribbean and the Red Sea to name a few. Indeed, these locations have a lot to offer and my Truk Lagoon trip has fond memories, but you do not have to travel to distant shores to find a plethora of dive sites here in the UK. Granted the water is colder, darker, less visibility and a drysuit is a must, but there's an abundance of sea life in British coastal waters and for the addicted wreck diver, where else in the world has the most concentration of shipwrecks from war and natural disaster?

Latest News

UK Wreck Diving

Two world wars together with as many centuries as an ocean going nation, have ensured a plentiful supply of wreck diving opportunities for UK wreck divers. There are an estimated 500,000 wrecks around the UK coast and some dating back almost 2,000 years. The First World War and the U-Boat activity that played a massive role in it, providing many wrecks for divers to research and explore. Some have become regular favourites of divers, others have yet to be discovered. The English Channel offers a large number of unknown and unexplored wrecks that keep UK divers occupied throughout the summer months. However, weather conditions and cooler water temperatures may dilute the the desires of some divers, mandating a typical diving season between April and October each year. Sea temperatures range from between 8degC the winter and 20degC in the summer. The more interesting and unexplored wrecks tend to be found in or close to the two shipping lanes in the middle of the channel. Here, depths range from about 40 meters in the east to in excess of 100 meters in the west. These tend to be challenging dives, not least of which is a result of trying to avoid the heavy traffic during decompression. However, the unknown wrecks that can be found compensate for the additional planning and logistics required. A most memorable dive to me was HMS Flirt, a Palmer three funnel, 30 knot destroyer sitting upright at some 40 metres at position 51 09' 25.4"N, 001 43' 22.6"E. Having found the Waveney II on fire, Flirt sent a boat to assist was fired upon by the Germans. The only survivors were those dispatched to aid Waveney II.

Dive Logs

  • Centennial Dive To The Clan Macvey And Pin Wreck

    The ship’s skeleton structures emerged from the sand together with the protruding propshaft and other metalwork. Clan MacVey was the antepenultimate ship to be destroyed by UB57 before she too met her fate on 14th August 1918. [More]

  • Is The Pin Wreck HMS Sprightly? Winch Gear

    Discovered in 1990 and sitting at a maximum 28 metres on a sandy and shingle bottom, it seems very little is known about ‘The Pin Wreck’. One theory is that she is a Nightingale class ‘Revenue Cutter’, a military vessel called HMS Sprightly that sunk in 1891. If this is the case, where are the cannons and carronades? [More]

  • Dive Log #336: A New Dive Site For Swanage Boat Charters Diver Recovery Viper

    An undived site for Swanage Boat Charters on their plotter “because nobody goes there” made this a fun expedition for all. The skipper had to first find the wreck & there was no guarantee what would be there. The challenge for the skipper to find the wreck and the divers able to explore a wreck was an exciting to all. [More]

Off Gassing

Still in our infancy, our site will continue to develop over the coming season. Our focus this year is the centenary anniversary of the loss of U-Boat SM UB57 and the sinking of her targets, with dives to vessels sunk by Johannes Lohs on the 100th anniversary of the ship's demise.

U-Boat SM UB57

  • UB-57 Crew Role of Honour Ysselsteyn War Cemetery

    The last radio message was received on the 14th of August 1918. It is assumed that the vessel hit a mine and that the Uboat has remained lost. [More]

  • Oberleutnant zur See Johannes Lohs U-III Type Uboat

    Born 24th June 1889, Waldgasthof Bad Einsiedel, Seiffen, Germany. Johannes Lohs was a successful and highly decorated German U-boat commander in the Kaiserliche Marine during WWI. Awarded the Pour le Mérite, he is the eighth most successful U-Boat commander of WWI by tonnage. [More]

  • The Hunt For SM UB57 And Johannes Lohs Pair of Lea and Perrins bottle tops recovered from the Kyarra in April 2017.

    This is the photo that initiated the quest to seek out and hunt the WWI U-Boat of Johannes Lohs, the ubiquitous U-Boat SM UB57. It is a pair of Lea and Perrins bottle tops recovered from the HMHS Kyarra in April 2017 and while explaining to my nine year old that these bottle tops had [More]